“They were a jazz band we saw one day. But because there were some kids in there as well, they were coming from another place and didn’t relate to what the band was doing, so the situation had possibilities.”Mark Knopfler (126)

“I started writing it in an appliance store in New York City, in a kitchen display area in the front window. I had a piece of paper and a pencil and just started to write down some of the lines that this guy had been coming out with. So they’re pretty direct; some of those lines are pretty direct. They were written down two minutes after he said them.”Mark Knopfler (127)

“I wrote this just off Trafalgar Square in London. I also think of a Ted Hughes poem comparing the idea of “Where are the lions?” as opposed to these starlings, in terms of contemporary figures of strength who aren’t there, who used to be there.”Mark Knopfler (128)

“I think of it essentially as just a little poem, and then a musical experiment where the character says what he says. It’s a song about writing songs, actually; it’s a song about the process of writing, that you make your own little private observations.”Mark Knopfler (128)

“Written out of pain and frustration of earlier years after breakdown of first marriage.”Mark Knopfler (129)

“[Is it a defence of realist art and an attack on the avant-garde? – Ed]. No…yes, in the sense that it reflects what I wanted to say there and then about a guy I knew who died, and it was just a five-minute wham-bang flash of feeling. But it’s not an attack on the avant-garde, in the sense that it’s not intended to be a statement to be taken up by any kind of movement. I don’t belong to any kind of movement, and I don’t want any movement to attach itself to what I say.”Mark Knopfler (653)